Concerning Kanye, Billy Graham’s Anti-Semitism, Sweden’s Rightward Surge
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hey everyone,
If you’re in the US, remember to put together your voting plan for November 8. Here is a state-by-state voting guide. And this is some quick information on voter intimidation and discrimination, along with resources for reporting possible illegal activity around voting. Be careful out there!
This is going to be Sy’s last newsletter for a little while because he’s taking over primary childcare duties as his wife goes back to work. Our best wishes to him and his new family! And don’t worry, he’ll be back early next year.
And now, this week's highlights!
Suzie’s recommendations:
This Washington Post article chronicles the life of an unsung civil rights hero, Charles M. Sherrod. Sherrod was a founding leader in the Albany, GA Movement which united local activists in their struggle against Jim Crow. The article’s author, Professor Ansley Quiros, describes how Albany is often remembered as a failure of the civil rights era due to the local Police Chief’s strategy of quickly locking people up to avoid the kind of protests that might have turned public opinion against him. But that was only true during Martin Luther King, Jr.’s lifetime. The movement continued long after King’s assassination, making slow but steady gains under the leadership of folks like Sherrod. Quiros further recounts how it was Sherrod’s faith that inspired and sustained him in his fight for racial justice. In addition to the Albany Movement, his work included organizing white seminary students, establishing a farming collective in rural Georgia, and involvement in politics. His story illustrates the twists and turns that our lives can take in the pursuit of justice, and the perseverance that journey requires.
Kanye’s recent antisemitic remarks are, tragically, no aberration in the Christian world. North Park Theological Seminary student and former editor at Cornerstone magazine Mike Hertenstein was one of the first researchers to lay eyes on the unredacted transcript of Richard Nixon’s infamous 1972 conversation with Billy Graham. As Hertenstein lays out in this post, the details are even more damning than originally thought. Graham describes a cabal of powerful Jews he refers to as the “Synagogue of Satan” drawing on the same antisemitic trope espoused by Kanye. False narratives about Jewish conspiracies to dominate the world have fed anti-Jewish sentiment for centuries, propelled pogroms, and enabled the Holocaust. In short, such ideas do not exist in a vacuum, but reside in an ecosystem of hate. They are not innocuous and can incite real violence.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
Between the Scenes is a segment on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah where the audience asks Noah questions and he responds unrehearsed. Recently, an audience member asked him about his “beef” with Kanye. What followed, which the audience clearly did not expect, was a genuine expression of concern for Kanye, stories about Noah’s personal experience supporting a family member with bipolar disorder, and a refusal to pile on a celebrity. Noah critiqued America’s tendency to stay silent and refuse to adjust behavior toward someone even when we all know they are going through something. He shared a phrase from South Africa that he translated to “say it to your face,” describing the type of honesty his culture had. He said he tries to embody loving people while speaking the truth, and he issues a challenge to love our neighbors no matter how famous they are, even while denouncing terrible things they say. Followers of Jesus would do well to follow this example of leveraging a platform, not for clout or clicks but for concern and care.
At my home church, New Life Fellowship East in Hempstead, New York, we are in a sermon series on the letters to the 7 churches in Revelation chapters two and three. In this video, Pastor John Kim starts preaching (at about 39:00) on the church at Laodicea. Often Christian leaders use this passage to shame those they see as “lukewarm” into more and more religious activity. But as Pastor John reveals, that’s not what the passage is about. The gathering of believers at Laodicea performed ritualistic tasks for God, and they were prosperous, healthy, and influential. They had built a robust life for themselves, but it was wholly apart from the God they claimed to follow. God confronts them because of their distance from Him, and also invites them to greater intimacy. Many of us have robust religious lives, or we have sat in churches full of “Christian” programming where the Spirit of the Living God was not necessary or present. We don’t lack works for God but we lack dependence on and sincere trust in Him.
Sy’s recommendations:
I recently wrote in this newsletter about Italy’s new fascist government. This week, the Boston Review has an informative article about Sweden’s sudden rightward lurch following the huge electoral turnout for a party that originated in Nazism. It explains that Sweden’s racial homogeneity kept much of the country’s bigotry out of the headlines for a long time. But Sweden has a history steeped in scientific racism, and its enormous demographic shift over the last 40 years unearthed the truth. Now Sweden is just one of about a dozen European countries whose extreme right wings are resurgent. During my years living in Europe, I saw that the white people there often compare themselves to the US with our protests and in-your-face racial tensions, concluding that Europe just doesn’t have the same problems with racism. Hopefully the recent string of elections serves as a wake-up call for those willing to listen to their nations’ own marginalized groups.
This article opens with passengers on a trans-Atlantic cruise around a dinner table telling stories of what the water reminded them about. The older, white guests told “tales of love, adventure, [and] science.” They then turn to Nylah Burton, a Black travel writer and the author of this profound reflection on her trip. The rest of the piece tells her story of crossing what to her is primarily “one of the most infamous, populous graveyards. A site of mass genocide that changed the shape of our world forever.” Burton is a skilled communicator, clearly and honestly recording her thoughts and feelings as she went on this journey, as well as the dismaying contrast with the experience of her fellow passengers. Living in the reality of varying perceptions like these should be our norm if we want to leave colonized faith. We must understand that a deep and painful journey for some is a light, leisurely time for others. And we have to learn to love marginalized people within that context of their own experience, as Jesus did.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team